The Coffee and Messiah of Unit 27
by Vintage Reign
Summary: "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you . . . Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn." Isaiah 60 The brief, January night of a Gotham city cop who encounters a cold cup of coffee, a rapist and the thing that may be the Messiah of Gotham city.


It's nights like this when I am certain Gotham will be my grave. When the heat of the styrofoam cup in my frozen hands cannot hold back the frigid, seemingly endless cold of the tomb that is this city. My tomb. My city.

The convenience store sign buzzes pitifully - the heat in the car's given out, and damn if this isn't the night for it - and I swallow the black liquid. Radio plays voices I know - 240 in progress on Marton, 503 at Harrison, 482 in Hayville, does anyone copy, 10-16, do you copy? Negative, I don't copy, because this coffee is shit, nothing's open at this hour, my daughter is practically failing school, I think Jenna's coming down with the flu and the dog threw up on the carpet again and now that you mention it, yes, I'm feeling pretty damn sorry for myself.

I don't say that. I pick up the trasmitter and say, quite clearly and as per protocol, "27 to dispatcher, at New Street, go ahead."

"27 to 261 at New Street."

"10-4, on my way."

My tires spin on frozen streets. I wonder what I must have done to piss the sergeant off enough to get patrol near the docks in January. People who think the ocean is some kind of vast, perfect thing clearly ain't been to Gotham at night, ain't seen the way the water whips against the metal railings and freezes in a glassy coat like a funeral mask. They ain't ever felt the ocean spray of wind become solid spikes of ice in the air, flinging themselves against your face and hands and the cup of coffee which is cold now anyway.

Welcome to Gotham's ocean, kids: like Seaworld with murder victims and floating mob informants. Leave the swimtrunks at home.

I feel the cold burn and stab at me the minute I leave the car, hand on my holster, the sound of screaming echoing through the thin, dead air, already ringing in my ears and swallowed by the sea.

I didn't need this right now. Hell, nobody ever needs this, but not tonight.

261. Rape in progress.

In my head, I already know how this goes. Turn the corner, two silhouettes on an empty street just beyond the docks, one bent over, screaming, whimpering, the other grunting, whispering something as insidious and toxic as mercury poisoning.

I've seen it a dozen times. Still stops the blood in my veins every time.

She's mostly given up by now, only whimpering one word through her sobs.

"Help."

I pull the gun automatically, aim it, keep the safety on.

"Step away and put your hands above your head."

The man stops, turns his head like a feral dog towards a scent. Even in darkness I see his eyes widen as they look from my face, to the gun, to the woman.

He should be stepping back now - they usually do. But he's doing it wrong, pulling something from his pocket and yanking her up by the hair to hold the knife - shiny and dirty - to her throat.

Her crying mixed with the sound of the pounding waves against metal railings is maddening. No wonder we've got so many crazies here - it sounds the city dying.

"Get the fuck away from me, pig!" he screams, pulling the woman towards him as a shield. "Put the gun down and stay the fuck away!"

My left foot takes a step towards him. Gun still up, but my aim's not good enough to hit his hand before -

Knife sinks in. She's given up crying now, only whimpers. Something dark leaks out of her skin, just a tiny little line.

Another step.

A whooshing noise above, distinctly separate from the ocean. Quieter, less natural.

Something dark and glinting slices through the night and the man's knife falls from his hand with a clatter. The woman collapses, and he's holding his hand, shrieking like a dying child, "Not you, no, you aren't real, you aren't - "

For a minute, I believe he's truly gone insane. It happens every once in a while - the gunpoint pushes some poor sick fuck to the brink and suddenly it's not aiming at a man anymore but just a broken piece of one.

And then I see Him. The same shape that everyone on the force describes - impossibly tall, winged, like a monstrous avenging demon or angel or otherwordly being sent by God to save me or kill me.

Like a bat.

It's my turn. You ain't a real member of the Gotham force until you've seen Him, gotten a story to trade over bagged lunches in the breakroom. From the way they talk, you'd think they sat down and had tea with Him after nabbing the bad guys.

They never mention the way he moves like a wild animal, the sheer terror that grips every atom of every cell in your body. No, the boys somehow leave that part out.

He is on the man like a fire on gunpowder - explosive, precise - and I have just enough sense left in me to holster the gun and run towards the woman crumpled on the concrete.

I try to keep my eyes on her, perform first aid the way I was trained, but I find they won't obey me. Those traitors are riveted on Him. It's like watching a boxer, a martial artist and a dancer thrown into the body of a mad feral beast. It is controlled wildness, it is perfectly precise fury.

Three moves to take him down. I count. Only three. Some kind of flying kick, two jabs to the rib and neck. Just three and what was a man is now an unconscious heap on the pavement of this tomb.

From my place on my knees beside the woman, looking up towards where the silhouette is backlit by a ghostly white streetlight, He looks like a vision. I feel as if I am kneeling in Sunday school again, turned towards the old stained glass windows, hands clasped in prayer.

I'm glad I didn't drink that whole cup of coffee, because if I had I'd have pissed my pants by now.

He nods at me - or what I am almost certain is a nod, a little incline of the head, one ear of the cowl tilted toward me ever so slightly, then towards the man. The expression of the sharp line of His mouth never changes, the dark shadow over His eyes only moves a fraction of an inch, but He is very clear.

I let out the breath I realize I have been holding since I stepped out of the car and nod back fervently. I'll take care of the trash - that's not what He's here for, after all.

I stand, reaching for the cuffs in my belt, and by the time I'm on my feet He's gone. Nothing to prove his existence but the empty street and the man lying on it and the sound of the screeching ocean against metal.

As if He never was at all.

I reach the car, radio it in, help the woman into the front seat with a blanket or something. I offer her the coffee - she needs it more than me at this point anyway.

As my foot steps on the gas, something old comes into my head. I feel as if I am passing by a casket in the old church - the one a block from my childhood home in that shit suburb outside of Detroit, the one where the pews creaked and the Reverend was so old he could barely stand for a whole sermon.

It was a funeral for my grandmother, but the sermon was general, for any funeral, something about the joy of salvation.

A passage from it comes into my head, the wavering voice of the Reverend clear like silk over the drone of the radio and the smash of the water.

Something about death and salvation - it's pretty much the same for a person as for a city, for a whole world. It seems fitting, somehow.

"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you . . . Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn."(Isaiah 60)


End file.
